Investigate, Review, Reflect, Act

Practice writing formal reviews#

If you’ve not created a formal performance review at your company before, practice writing a performance review of something or someone close to you: the local diner where you had dinner last night, your dog walker, or perhaps the local barista. Do it formally by first writing up the expectations of that role, including any sort of metrics you can identify. Then write the review. Do this a few times until you are comfortable with the mental process of writing reviews.

Identify your team's strengths and weaknesses#

Consider each of your team members and ask:

• How does this person make the team stronger?

• Why is the team stronger for having them on it?

• What things does this person do that nobody else does, that nobody else does as well, or that nobody else sees or understands?

Create a specific description of each person’s strengths that you can use to inform your performance reviews. Do the same for their weaknesses. Take a look at both lists—is one list significantly longer than the other? This might indicate that you have a biased view of your employee; take that into consideration in future analysis and judgment.